Misreading Housman

On this first day of spring, snow covers the fruit trees, mingling improbably with the new blossoms like identical twins brought up in different hemispheres. It is not what Housman meant when he wrote of the cherry hung with snow, though he also knew how death can mistake the seasons, and if he made it all sound pretty, that was our misreading in those high school classrooms where, drunk on boredom, we had to recite his poems. Now the weather is always looming in the background, trying to become more than merely scenery, and though today it is telling us something we don't want to hear, it is all so unpredictable, so out of control that we might as well be children again, hearing the voices of thunder like baritone uncles shouting in the next room as we try to sleep, or hearing the silence of snow falling soft as a coverlet, even in springtime whispering: relax, there is nothing you can possibly do about any of this.